David Benavidez is in the final stages of his preparation for one of the most important fights of his career, against David Morrel. The fight, scheduled at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on February 1, is crucial in the search for a stellar card.
The winner of the fight is set to be the next challenger for the undisputed light heavyweight title, which will be contested by Russians Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol, who will have their rematch three weeks later in Saudi Arabia.
This would be the end of the war of words that lasted for almost two years, in search of a super middleweight title shot against Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez in which the most he achieved was to reduce the aspirations of the Mexican champion, from $200 to $150 million.
However, Benavidez revealed that the opportunity to face Canelo in the ring, beyond this formal rivalry, never materialised.
The day Canelo and Benavidez almost fought
In an interview with Steven Cureno III on ‘KOArtist Sports’, the journalist referred to a day when they were indeed about to clash in the ring: “I think there was a time when you were supposed to spar with Canelo. I don’t know if it was for ‘Triple G’, but then, it didn’t work out. You ended up sparring with ‘Triple G’. Lastly, tell me that story.”
The ‘Mexican Monster‘ explained that he made the ‘smartest decision in history’ by dodging Canelo and recalled how that sparring session with Gennady Golovkin went during the trilogy they had between 2017 and 2022. He pointed out that at that time, when he was still a teenager, he was looking for the opportunity to train with boxing figures to perfect his skills. However, he reflected: “If I trained with Canelo Alvarez, before the fight I could reveal everything to Golovkin”.
“We know you’re training with GGG… We don’t want you to reveal our secrets,” Benavidez recalled. However, he insists he does not regret his decision. “If I had sparred with him… he would never want to fight me because he would see what level I am at.” And, on the contrary, he claims that he benefited from training with Gennady Golovkin.
Canelo Alvarez is still looking for his next opponent for his Cinco de Mayo fight, while Benavidez finally moved up to 175 pounds, complicating the possibility of this fight taking place and the two fighters seem to be getting further and further apart.